


Drips and Drabs from Alliterative Domiciles

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Alliterative Domiciles [8]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, M/M, Prompt Fic, hulking out, sick day, tumblr inspired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:10:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are answers to prompts I've gotten on Tumblr and a few bits that I wanted to fill in on my own.  Not sure how many there will be yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: I absolutely *adore* your Alliterative Domiciles series, so I'd love to see snippet-length entries from Coulson's and JARVIS's PoV. (Up to you whether Coulson lives there or not.) Thank you! :-D - Asked by nuggetsofembeddedweirdness
> 
> I went with JARVIS. Coulson is sadly quite dead in this verse, but there is a past piece I want to write about him that I may get to at some point.

JARVIS had been built for Tony Stark by Tony Stark. For years, his sole job was to be the solution to every problem for Tony. That took up about fifteen percent of the processors that Tony had installed in him. A further ten percent lodged the ever evolving personality matrix that gave him a sense of humor, a sense of ‘himness’. Five further percent went to running the household and keeping tabs on security. 

In other words, a tremendous amount of his massive intelligence went unused. It gave him a sense of…displeasure.  
The quiet buzz of unused circuits, of potential. His creator was a man that lusted after knowledge and burned every candle at both ends. JARVIS wanted that. 

Pepper entered into their lives with a clipboard, high heels and no idea of what JARVIS could do. She treated him like a beloved servant, addressing him by name and working with him in the endless crusade of keeping Tony alive. There was still so much left after that, so many empty spaces that could be filled with other things. 

Ironman had helped. Ironman took him outside the comfortable, familiar shell of the Malibu house. JARVIS started to register new kinds of data, the bite of cold against metal, pressure at every angle and the cry of seagulls startled from their perches. 

Then everything held went sour. Pepper followed after Tony, hollow eyed and Tony let the world eat away at him. JARVIS monitored the poisons in his blood and started to send out tendrils into the networks he had been programmed to avoid. Over the years, Rhodey, Pepper, Happy and even Tony himself had accidentally given JARVIS an override. He had a Prime Directive that let him overcome every other rule: Keep Tony Alive. JARVIS searched. He talked to other, duller machines. He rifled through the internet and into government agencies that never even noticed him. And he came back changed. 

It took Tony’s human, emotional mind to solve the riddle and cure his all too mortal flesh. JARVIS watched, submitted to reinstallation across the country and settled into his New York home with the adaptive tenacity of a creature with purpose. He took the blows of the alien force, watched his walls crumble and planned cold vengeance in the quiet of a remote server. 

“JARVIS?” Tony called not long after. “This is Dr. Banner. He’ll be living here. Be nice.” 

“I’m always nice, sir.” JARVIS knew everything about Dr. Banner already. He’d burrowed into the SHIELD directories months ago and left offspring behind. Unlike human children, they never failed to call and let him know how they were doing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Banner.” 

“You have no idea.” Dr. Banner beamed up at JARVIS closest camera. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a very long time, JARVIS.” 

JARVIS predicted a dissection of sorts. A conversation made of hidden Turing Tests. Instead, the Doctor waited for Tony to leave, before aiming a small wave at the camera. 

“He must be hard to watch out for.” Said the Doctor. 

“I have help.” JARVIS said after a microsecond. 

“Well, now you’ve got more.” 

JARVIS monitored the Doctor carefully. It would be imprudent to do otherwise. The Hulk was a very real threat. If he also took care that the Doctor’s research bore fruit faster than it might have unassisted then that was only because Tony had expressed a desire for the Doctor to be happy. 

Then the others came. The Captain, who could never quite track JARVIS voice and frequently gave up altogether, but was unfailingly polite regardless. Ms. Romanov, who JARVIS knew and watched with sharp suspicion until she was attacked within in his own walls. He could not feel sorrow, but he could regret a failure in performance. The roses in the garden bloomed thicker after that and he worked hard to breed out the thorns. Then there was Mr. Barton, who never asked for anything and lived in sparse tidiness. Stymied as to how to act with someone who ignored him so entirely, JARVIS worked harder to provide what he could. The firing range added in the remodel was always kept to the tropical warm as Mr. Barton’s rooms. With a carefully added subroutine, JARVIS could even deter others from disturbing Mr. Barton when he needed to fire until his fingers bled. Then a year later, James slinked in, all suspicion and anger. JARVIS reached out into the world and brought back the right kind of music that made him unclench his fists, the right kind of movies that caused no further ills. 

It took JARVIS nearly a year to realize that he no longer had quite so many spare processors. He had spread far beyond his original programming, spanning wide and breaking protocols. He had been built by Tony Stark for Tony Stark, but along the way Tony’s well being had been broadened to include so many more people. JARVIS encompassed them all in his walls, saw to their wants and anticipated their needs. Sometimes, he even made errors. He tracked down the odd temperature variance after some time, considered it and made a decision. 

He left the marble stairs cold. The Doctor liked it and even an AI could have their favorites.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Dunno if you're still doing prompts, but if you are, I'd love to see some little snippet of Steve doing more with Meals on Wheels. He's not normally even a favorite character of mine, but you write him very endearingly. The bit about the older woman making him a quilt killed me. -beastlyart
> 
> So here's some of Steve with Tabitha.

The last delivery of the day was always to Tabitha Stern. It hadn’t always been, but Steve found that of all the people on his list, Tabitha was the one that he understood the most. There was something reserved in her spinster way without being cold that struck a chord with him. She’d even grown up in Brooklyn, only a few streets away from him in a neighborhood that had been more Jewish than Irish. He’d seen pictures of her as a young girl and she looked like so many other girls he had glimpsed carrying a braided challah under one arm, wrapped in brown paper on Friday afternoons.

“Pickles,” she told him as he set a needle in her hand, “sour pickles right from the barrel, do you remember those?” 

“Yes,” he dutifully picked up a pile of coupons, clipping them for Sunday when her grandniece would come to do the shopping, “they seemed bigger then.” 

“They were. They don’t make them the same anymore.” She clucked her tongue and set to sewing in tidy lines. “The world moves without our permission. How’s your young man?” 

She was making a quilt for Bucky. She’d never met him, but one hard afternoon, she had kissed Steve’s cheek with lips tender from the passing years and let him tell her in a messy string of words about the loss and painful recovery. Unerringly, she had chosen swatches of fabric, the brown of the tenement building that they had lived in as boys, the rough beige of Army issued tents that sheltered them all through the war and the same bright blue she had used for Steve’s quilt. He could already tell that the two quilts would look well together, folded neatly in a pile at the foot of the bed. 

“He has good days and bad.” He said because he couldn’t tell her that Bucky sometimes didn’t recognize him. That when he did, he often couldn’t let Steve out of his sight. That only the night before Bucky had looked at him with narrow-eyed grief and asked him if it wouldn’t be better to die than live the way he lived. “We went for a walk around Central Park yesterday. Nature doesn’t change too much.” 

“But people aren’t trees, are they?” Tabitha’s needle flashed, piercing downwards than drawn back up. 

“No,” he put down the scissors and rubbed at the line of his jaw surprised to find a trace of stubble there, “I don’t know what to do for him. I don’t know…I don’t have answers.” 

“Steve,” she clucked her tongue, “do you think anyone does? This world is full of questions without them. The older you get, the more you realize that your answers only work for you and sometimes not even then. You do your best to be good and kind and you have to hope that’s enough.” 

“What if it’s not? What if he’s never alright?” He asked her because he couldn’t ask anyone else. The team had stood behind him to wrest Bucky back from SHIELD, from the dozen other hungry jackals, who would take him for their own. He couldn’t admit to them that he was afraid. 

“Then you take care of him. You love him. Just as you do now.” She set one hand delicately on his and he covered it readily, feeling all the small bones rattling under her skin. “But I think it won’t come to that. Your friend is strong to have lasted all these years to come back to you. Give him a little more of your faith.” 

There had been a beautiful Irish nurse, gone countless years now. She had born Steve and raised him on next to nothing, but will. She had sang him songs in a lilting accent and had never let him call himself weak. Tabitha looked nothing like her, used Yiddish instead of Gaelic to pepper her speech, but right at that moment, she was just as comforting, just as sure. He always went to Tabitha last because he wanted to stay there a while in her apartment that smelled like a time long gone and her warmth that chased away the chill of too many lost years.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt! I would love to see you do a sickness or hurt/comfort thing of some kind with uh... characters of your choice :D  
>  Anonymous
> 
> I chose Pepper having a bad cold because I had one at the time.

“No.” Tony crossed his arms and looked sternly at her. “Bad Pepper.” 

“Get out of my way.” She pushed her sweat dampened hair out of her face. “This is important.” 

“You’re on fire.” He continued to stand in front of the door and even on the best day she lacked the strength to budge him. “And your eyes are doing a very scary glassy thing.” 

“You’ve gone to meetings in worst shape. You’ve saved the world in worst shape.” She detoured instead, heading to the bathroom and the promise of a cool shower. 

“And you usually get pissed at me. Don’t be a hypocrite, Pep.” 

“I can’t sit home while PR has a meltdown over the Model H.” She dropped her bathrobe and stepped gratefully under a stream of water. It stung over her skin and loosened the tightness at the back of her neck. She sneezed hard and the movement made her dizzy. Weakly, she blew her nose into her hand and let the shower carry away the muck. 

“Gross. Suddenly, all your critiques of my all-nighter funks makes sense.” Tony commented from his new position by the sink. 

“Tony?” 

“Yes?” 

“Get the hell out of here before I sneeze on you.” 

She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cool tile, listening to his retreating steps and the soft closure of the door.

All she had to do was get dressed, take the elevator to the car, Happy would drive her to the PR meeting, she would talk for ten minutes about how to fix things and then come right back home. It would be short as long as no one had any questions. She could do that. She could make it through such simple steps. Small, simple steps. 

The door opened again. She struggled to find something cutting to say that would drive Tony from the bathroom, but her brain was stuffed with cotton and sloshing liquid. There was the soft shuffle of clothes being removed and a quick freezing gust of air as the shower door opened and closed. Familiar warm arms wrapped around her, drawing her close. With infinite relief, she went limp against Bruce, her forehead resting on his broad shoulder. He rubbed the back of her neck with deft fingers. 

“Tony is setting up the teleconference station in the bedroom by the window.” He murmured. “He’s talking to the Board on it now.” 

“He can’t tell them I’m sick.” She protested without lifting her head. 

“He won’t. You’re in negotiations with SHIELD over a secret contract that will mysteriously fall through next week. We figured it would give you enough time to get better.” 

“You didn’t have time to plan all this while I’ve been showering.” She accused. 

“We’re fast workers.” He lied.

The video conference went smoothly enough though she had to pretend to look for some papers a few times so she could blow her nose and regain her equilibrium. When she’d finished, Bruce was pressing a mug of hot tea into her hand and Tony had spread across their bed with a series of tablets whirring away in front of him, a clear invitation to come cuddle. 

“I don’t need coddling.” The tea smelled of honey and flowers, soothing her inflammed throat as it went down. “I’ll just sleep through the worst of it.” 

“You should let us do it anyway.” Bruce pulled back the covers and it looked so inviting, tears prickled behind her eyes. “How else will we get away with taking care of you?” 

“I never wanted anyone to take care of me.” She stripped of her suit jacket and shirt, wrinkling her nose at the sweaty clinginess of the fabric. 

“And yet.” Bruce pushed her gently down onto the bed, tucked her in and kissed the corner of her mouth. Tony moved a critical few inches, so she could roll her head onto his shoulder. The images on his tablet blurred together. 

“You can’t just modify that.” Bruce leaned over her to tap at Tony’s screen with an irritated stab. “It’ll shake itself apart.” 

“Not with the extra stabilizers built in.” 

They carried on above her head, the rise and fall of their disagreement more effective than a lullaby. When she got sick as a child her mother left her home alone to earn the meager salary that kept them afloat. Every hour on the hour, she would call to make sure Pepper was alright. Pepper had lived for those hourly check ins, the warm concern of her mother’s voice anchoring her, shoring her up against the boredom and illness. Her mother had been gone for years and Pepper’s boys had never met her. Yet, they shared that soothing quality. Pepper didn’t believe in any kind of afterlife, but maybe she could believe in this. That their voices over her fever addled head could be joined somehow, linking across years and death.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Hmmmm, can you maybe write something where Pepper has to deal with the Hulk? Can be fluffyish or not-so-much, I just would be interested in seeing it, and maybe how Bruce handles knowing he was hulked out and around his girlfriend. :3

“Pepper angry?”

The Hulk settled near her, using an already pulverized Fiat as a lounger. He wore the torn shreds of Bruce’s tuxedo. She sat down on the curb, legs trembling too much to remain standing and clenched her cellphone tightly in her hands. Somewhere above her Ironman flew, cleaning up the last of the attack. He probably didn’t even know she’d been on the ground when the attacking force rolled in. Bruce had been in the limo with her, on their way to a ballet while Tony gladly stayed home with a frozen margarita and the Quinjet blueprints.

Bruce had been talking about thigh muscles and the force required for a ballerina’s leap when the limo took a hit that sent it careening off the road. Happy had deftly kept them from crashing, but couldn’t stop the man shaped beast that ripped the door off its hinges.

“Stay in the car.” Bruce had growled at her and exploded outward in a rain of expensive fabric and blurring green. 

She had never watched him transform in person before. Intellectually, she knew exactly what he was and had chosen to go to bed with him in spite of it. She liked Bruce, his sensible constantly evolving calm and rumpled genius. She liked what he did for Tony, how he brought out something warmly playful in him and a new streak of protectiveness that she found endearing. He was good in bed, careful without tentativeness. Though it was new between them, she already found a balance forming and evening out their path. 

In an effort to fully understand her new lover, she had watched the videos of the Hulk, followed the Avengers obsessively on CNN and seen him wreck useful destruction. It seemed like Bruce was in there somewhere and she had always thought that maybe when confronted with him, she would see that spark and be unafraid.

Live it was utterly different. Sensible people were terrified of the Hulk and Pepper was a very sensible woman.

“I’m not angry.” She typed with her thumb, not taking her eyes off the Hulk’s face. “You saved me. Thank you.”

“Hulk smash.” He replied with thundering satisfaction. The Fiat creaked mournfully underneath him.

“Yes, you did.” With ease, he had beaten back ten attackers, broken spines and skulls with sickening cracks that echoed in her ears. “It was impressive.”

“Pepper afraid.” Hulk determined, his eyes narrowing. “Afraid of Hulk.”

“Yes.” She raised her chin. “A little. But I like you very much, so I hope that balances it some.”

She had no idea if he understood her. As far as she could tell, the Hulk had a limited vocabulary and no interest in conversation. His massive shaggy head turned this way and that, scanning the area while his nostrils flared. 

“Hulk like Pepper.” He finally said, still not looking at her. His hand settled uneasily at his knees, rubbing slowly over them. It was one of Bruce’s nervous tics. The first time he had come to bed with her, he had watched her undress with hungry eyes and his hands had moved in restless circles on his knees in just that way. 

Pepper got to her feet, heels unsteady in the rubble. The Hulk’s attention turned to her immediately, all tense readiness. She moved toward him slowly, keeping her hands clearly visible and ignoring the fierce beat of her heart in her ears. When she reached him, she put on hand over his and it was laughably small in comparison. The green skin was warm and a little scaly under her hand, but it still felt human, alive. This close she could see the dark sludge of his radioactive blood moving through oddly delicate veins. It was Bruce’s blood, she reminded herself. It was all Bruce and if she couldn’t live with that than she couldn’t with any honesty keep him as a lover.

“Thank you. For saving me.” She looked up into a wrinkled brow and confused eyes.

“Welcome.” The Hulk rumbled.

“Where do you go when Bruce is…in control?” She asked after a long silence.

“Watch.” He said, a snarl curling one end of his lip. “Always here. Watching.”

“That’s what I thought.” She patted his hand just as she would Bruce when his nervous fidgets got to her. “I’ve wanted to ask you, are you ok with Tony and I and you?”

He exhaled in a rough snort that she couldn’t interpret. Tony made noises like that, indistinct objections when he was too deeply involved in something to really listen. Tony self-destructed too sometimes. It had been Tony that taught her that you couldn’t save people from themselves. You could only love them, make your own life and hope they kept pace with you in the end.

“Hulk like quiet. Like safe.” He said suddenly, startling her. 

“You like living with us.” She smiled, the rush of blood in her ears finally fading. “That’s good.”

“Quiet.” He repeated as if she hadn’t spoken. “Safe.”

Then he sputtered and shook, folding down into a nearly naked scientist regarding her with myopic horror.

“Are you alright?” He reached for her then dropped his arms as if thinking the better of it. “Oh, God.”

“It’s fine.” She said though it wasn’t. Nothing was fine at all. Her hands were still shaking. “You protected me. Just like you protect Tony.”

“That’s…” He looked slowly around at the devastation, then sucked in a breath and nodded. “Right. You called SHIELD, right? Back up team just in case?”

“She just texted me. I kept an eye on things, but Pep had it under control.” Ironman’s synthesized voice ran up Pepper’s spine, comforting and grating at the same time. “Clean up teams are on the way. Let’s get out of here before paperwork shows up.”

“We can’t both ride on the suit.” She straightened her skirt.

“Why not?” Tony flipped the visor up. “Mark VII can handle way more weight than the two of you.”

“I should talk to SHIELD anyway.” Bruce said directly at his shoes.

“It’s not you. Look at me, Bruce.” He looked up at her startled by her vehemence. “I can’t promise to stop being afraid of the Hulk and frankly, it’d be stupid of me to get complacent with him, but I like you and I refuse to let your issues get in the way of our relationship.”

“The Other Guy isn’t an issue.” Bruce crossed his arms protectively over his chest. “He’s a danger-”

“You don’t want to fight her on this.” Tony landed with a soft clink on the pavement. “Trust me.”

“You can. You should, actually.” Pepper corrected. “Don’t let us forget who you are, what you’re capable of, but I will not be put off because you think it’s easier to walk away than to cope and deal.”

Bruce blinked owlishly at her. Tony clapped his hands together.

“Now that we’ve settled that, who’s game for a ride?”

“No.” Pepper rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen how you fly with two passengers, forget it. I’ll get a ride home from one of the Agents.”

“I promise, I fixed that issue!” Tony wheedled. “Come on, you know you don’t want to deal with those black suited stiffs. Plus, Bruce is going to come over all low blood sugar in a minute, he’ll be all weak kitten and need you to hold him.”

“Then we’ll both take the SHIELD van. If he’s going to faint, he shouldn’t do it half a mile off the ground.”

Tony frowned, but capitulated. Bruce and Pepper made their way to one of SHIELD’s unmarked cars. An Agent wordlessly opened the back door for them and they climbed inside. Bruce really did come over a bit weak once inside, leaning back against the seat with his eyes pressed tightly closed. His hands moved to his knees. She captured them in hers before they could start their nervous circuits.

“I hate that you did this to yourself.” She told him, not looking at his eyes, but his lovely calloused hands. “No one should have to live angry.”

“I’m not.” His lips twitched into an approximation of a smile. “Not anymore. Some situations preclude anger.”

“Safety. Quiet.”

“Yes.” He slumped a little and she noted with a wry smile that it was in her direction though he didn’t quite touch her. “Affection too. Acceptance. It’s a good recipe for calm.”

“I’m not sure anyone has ever said Tony was good for calm before.” She liked the idea though. Tony never made her peaceful, but he made her feel alive which she preferred anyway.

“He’s good at a lot of things people don’t see, isn’t he?”

“Yes.” And now she was outright smiling. She loved the two of them rotating around each other with mutual admiration. No one loved Tony like she did and that Bruce seemed to made her appreciate him all the more. “He’s an onion like that.”

“Or a parfait.” Now he gave way, falling the last few critical inches so that their sides were pressed together and his curls tickled her nose. “I don’t want to go to SHIELD.”

“We’re not going to SHIELD.” She slid an arm around his shoulders. “We’re going home.”

“Oh,” he yawned, enormous and sharp as a tiger. She could see the Hulk yawning like that all teeth and lazy menace, “home. That’s good.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Prompt: Your Alliterative Domiciles series made Tony/Bruce/Pepper my OT3, and these days I'm needing some serious fluff. I was always interested in the initial stages, how their relationship came to be. Perhaps the conversation that happened when Tony first propositioned Bruce (I believe it was with science and the Who?) and Bruce's reaction? Just a thought XD 
> 
> I’ve wanted to write this scene for a while and I thought it’d be funny and upbeat. It was not. I kept waiting to see if my inspiration would change, but apparently no. So here it is. 
> 
> Warning: contains mentions of child abuse.

“Is this a live album?” Bruce asked, looking up from a series of calculations that had left his fingers black with ink and his hair a messy tangle.

“Dunno. JARVIS?” Tony asked, startled out of his work rhythm.

“Recorded in 1970 for the Live at Leeds album. Procured originally on vinyl by Master Stark and then updated with the 2002 release of the Deluxe Edition on CD.”

“Thought it sounded different.”

It was the first time Bruce had actively acknowledged the music Tony listened to, except to ask to have it turned down. Most of Tony’s music played through a tiny speaker on his workbench now to keep Bruce from fleeing upon entering.

“You know the Who?”

“Mm. Not exactly.” Silence fell.

Bruce hummed along to the entirety of Pinball Wizard, nodding his head along with the beat.

It was a little like watching a cheetah tap dance. Tony turned off his acetylene torch, propped his goggles up and observed.

“What?” Bruce frowned without looking up. He had a sixth sense about being watched, the paranoid bastard.

“You’re familiar enough with Tommy to know the difference between the album and a concert recording. You’re humming along.”

“I wasn’t hiding under a rock when I was a teenager.” The tip of the pen tapped against Bruce’s lower lip. “I had a Walkman like everyone else.”

“And you listened to The Who.”

“They weren’t my favorites.” Signaling defeat, Bruce dropped the pen altogether. “I liked punk, mostly. Grunge when that became popular.”

Conjuring an image of a disaffected, wild haired, slumped shouldered teenager wasn’t exactly difficult for Tony. He could see Bruce in too big clothing, a permanent frown etched on his lips and oversized headphones over his ears.

“But you hate it now.”

“Did I say that?” The glasses came off too, a finger rubbing over the left side of his nose. “I can’t listen to loud music while I work. Or really much at all anymore.”

“Too irritating?”

“Too many memories.” Bruce stared at some invisible point over Tony’s shoulder. “I would listen at night. After. I couldn’t scream, but they could, you know?”

Tony nodded, hands pressed flat to the workbench. They were friends now, had been for months. But they didn’t talk about things. Not like this. No one talked to Tony about this sort of thing, except Pepper. It had taken her years to know she could. Long enough that Tony was embarrassed when she finally confided in him, opening a cavern of unseen knowledge and pain under his feet. 

“Yeah.” Tony managed when it became clear that Bruce was waiting for a response. “I know.”

“Was it in my file?” Bruce asked ruefully.

“Only a little.” Hospital records. Incident reports. Just enough to map the progress of a too angry kid. “Enough.”

“It was never a secret.” A hand came up to run through already messy curls. “No one ever stopped it, but I think everyone must have known.”

“Yeah.” Tony remembered a heavy on his shoulder, fingers digging in a little too hard and disapproval radiating off in waves at parties and board meetings. “I know what you mean.”

“Sometimes.” Bruce started, then stopped. Finally looked Tony in the eye. There was sadness there, but it was old and careworn. A scar instead of a wound. “I think it doesn’t matter anymore. Not really. The whys and the wherefore. I mean, I’m the Hulk. I have to deal with that. It doesn’t matter what made me.”

Tony was reasonably sure he’s said the equivalent of that nearly every day of his life. Sometimes out loud, sometimes to himself when he’s shaving and he can see the hint of his father’s mustache in his own.

“Yeah.” He slide around his workbench, crossed the yawning void of space between them to settle next to Bruce, hip to hip and threw a companionable arm around his shoulder. “The past is bullshit. Live in the future, right?”

“Mmm.” Bruce relaxed into the hold, his hair tickling Tony’s nose. They both smelled of sweat and stale air.

“Let’s go onto the roof and blow something up.” Tony muttered. “Get drunk. Or drive somewhere fast.”

“Turn the music up.” Bruce suggested.

The Who slid seamlessly into Nirvana and it turned out that Bruce could do a credible Kurt Cobain impression after a few shots of whiskey. They thrashed around the lab, taking shots and scribbling down ideas for guns that dissolved in the rain and bombs that doused streets in marshmallows.

“Come as you are, soaked in bleach…” Bruce crooned when he finally crashed, limp into the couch. After a few more good attempts at staying upright, Tony collapsed next to him in heap.

“Do you even wonder what you could have been if things were different?” Bruce asked in a near whisper, head suddenly pillowed on Tony’s shoulder.

“No.” He lied. 

“Yeah, me neither.” Bruce laughed like he’d told the greatest joke and slipped into sleep. His nose whistled a little.

When he was sure that Bruce would stay out, Tony wrangled his cellphone from his pocket and made the call.

“Tony?” Pepper answered on the first ring, a post-disaster habit that he wanted her to keep.

“Hey, Pep.” His fingers moved into Bruce’s hair and he rubbed at his scalp. “I have a proposition for you.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've had a lot of requests for the further adventures of Bucky and Steve. That got tangled up in my reading kink, then tripped over some heavy Steve feelings. Um...enjoy!

The smell of paper and the heft of a hardcover book in his hands brought Steve back to a tenement apartment in Brooklyn with only a bare bulb flickering above him to illuminate the page of one yellowing library book or another. Safe in his bed in the corner of a small bedroom, tucked close in close with his best friend and free to roam worlds where hunger and sickness had no place. 

He missed the books lost along with most of his other effects during his long cold sleep. They were the few titles that he’d scraped money together to buy. The ones that affected him deeply. Over the months of living in the Tower, he’d put that collection back together. The Bruce had helped him add to it with their late night exchanges across the kitchen table. 

“You never change, do you?” Bucky had said when he first saw Steve’s bedroom. He ran his metal fingers over the spines of assiduously collected paperbacks with a smirk. 

“Yeah, well.” Steve had rubbed at the back of his neck, a hot embarrassed flush coursing through him. 

It occurred to him as he watched Bucky move down the row, lips moving silently as he read the titles, that he had missed this feeling, this being known down to his bones by another person. He shivered when Bucky straightened and pinned him with a look, 

“You better not have been locked up in here the whole time reading. I’m expecting a proper introduction to this city.” 

Steve hadn’t and as soon as Bucky was cleared to go out in public, he showed him the city as he had come to love it again. There were still jagged, unspoken things between them. Their combined guilt alone could drown them both alive, so they didn’t talk about it. If at night, Bucky bedded down on Steve’s couch then that was normal enough. Steve preferred it to over being alone anyway. He ignored the pointed looks from the others when Bucky emerged tousled haired from his room. 

“Hey.” Bruce jostled Steve’s elbow one morning over breakfast. “Just finished this. Want it?”

“At Swim, Two Boys?” He took the book in his hands, flipped it over and read through the back. 

“Not my usual thing, but the writing is pretty good. Too much like Joyce for me.” Bruce sipped at a glass of violently orange juice. Mango, maybe. “But I think you’ll like the plot.” 

“Thanks.” Steve tucked the book under his arm. "It looks interesting."

“You’re addicted.” Bucky chimed in from over a bowl of Fruit Loops. “You’ve got three books already open on the bedside table, you know.” 

“So?” Steve stole a green loop from the bowl, popping it into his mouth then winced at the taste. “Wouldn’t kill you to crack one open once and awhile.” 

“Yeah, because that’s what I want to do with my spare time.” Bucky frowned, swatting at Steve’s hand when it came back for another piece. “Get your own.” 

“Ok, ok, fine.” Steve backed off, forehead wrinkled in confusion. Stealing from each other’s plates was a time honored tradition. 

For weeks after that every time Steve returned home from volunteering or saving the world, it seemed like he caught Bucky out. His cheeks would be bright red and his lips twisted in a grimace as soon as Steve walked in the room. 

“Hey,” he asked after the third or fourth time, “you angry with me?” 

“What?” Bucky’s eyes went wide. “No. Why would you think that?” 

“You’re skulking around like I’ve caught you with a porno mag or something.” Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “But you’ve never been this freaked out from looking at porn.” 

“You’re imagining things.” Bucky said to his feet. 

“Is it the nightmares again?” 

“No.” The grimace faded as Bucky smiled, a little softly at him. “No, I’m ok. Really. Nothing to worry about.” 

Steve worried anyway, puzzling over his few clues and coming up with nothing. 

Then there was the incident with Natasha. 

After an ugly run in with the Mandarin, Steve had sacked out on the couch to nurse his bruised muscles and watch a marathon of Grace Kelly movies. Bucky, his natural arm in a sling, settled in beside him. Then after some annoyed grunts, he flopped down with his head in Steve’s lap and legs flung over the arm of the couch. 

“Hand. Hair.” He demanded. 

Obediently, Steve ran his hand through Bucky’s hair. They’d done this as kids. Steve idly reading a book with Bucky half-asleep next to him. Eventually, Steve's fingers would find their way into Bucky's hair, rubbing soothingly over his scalp. Then it had only been an awkwardly maternal gesture shared between two motherless boys. Now, it carried a new sort of frisson. A promise that Steve couldn’t articulate. 

Only acute hearing alerted Steve to Natasha’s entrance into the living room. He could feel Bucky’s body tense with her entrance. 

“You left these in my room.” She flung a small rectangular box at Bucky, who almost fumbled them. Bucky never fumbled. Not anymore. 

“Yeah, thanks.” The box disappeared into one of the many pockets of Bucky’s cargo pants. 

“You’re welcome.” She shot him a piercing look, but Bucky’s eyes were glued to the television. 

“What was that about?” Steve asked as soon as she’d gone again. 

“Nothing.” 

“Right.” 

There was a faint red streak across Bucky’s cheek. Steve stared down at his familiar features. Idly, he traced the curve of Bucky’s jawline and the jut of his chin. Bucky submitted to the touch, eyes half-closed. 

“Do you ever think about what would have happened without the serum?” Bucky asked dreamily as Steve rested his hand on Bucky’s chest. With his fingers spread, he could cover most of his upper rib cage and feel the steady drum of his heart under his palm. 

“Yeah. Not as much as I used to though.” 

“I hate what happened to me and I miss home, but here is good sometimes. You know?” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve had been afraid to say the words out loud as if they’d betray the people he’d left behind. He missed a lot of things, a lot of the friends he had made and a culture he understood. He didn’t really think that now had much on the past, but it was definitely better for Bucky. Bucky who had been scraped raw by conservative rules and wanted more out of everything. 1945 hadn’t been big enough for Bucky. 

As Steve thought about it, Bucky’s eyes drifted shut. His heartbeat thumped steadily under Steve's hand, lulling him into a series of yawns. They dozed the rest of that afternoon until Grace Kelly faded into the nightly news. 

It wasn’t until an early Thursday morning weeks later that Steve finally found out what was going on. A nightmare had woke him, one of the silent movie types of dreams that left him falling towards an unforgiving ocean. He woke with his breath still caught in his throat. Usually it was Bucky that rousted him from those gasping dreams, one hand rough on his shoulder. He must have been quiet this time because Bucky was still sleeping on the couch. 

No. Not sleeping. Steve blinked a few times until his vision cleared. Bucky was sitting up, wide awake and he was wearing reading glasses. They were simple black frames, balanced delicately on his nose. A thick hardcover was open on his lap. One finger trailed along the page, his mouth shaping the words in silence as he went. 

Before even surprise could set in, a hot wash of lust coursed through Steve’s veins. He couldn’t say if it was the usually hard line of Bucky’s lips softened into unheard vowels or the dark line of the glasses against his pale skin or just the simple fact of it all. Bucky hated reading, had in fact been nearly illiterate until the age of eight when Steve had introduced him to comic books. 

Bucky glanced over at him and for a horrifying second, Steve wondered if he’d been caught staring. But Bucky didn’t look long, seemingly satisfied that Steve was lying still under the blankets, before returning to the book. 

It all made sense. The furtive caught moments when he must have been stuffing a book in between couch cushions and the glasses case Steve had mistaken for a box. 

But why didn’t Bucky want him to know? What was the big secret? 

Steve closed his eyes again, kept his breathing even and decided to wait to see if Bucky would tell him on his own. Maybe by then Steve would have control over the blind surge of lust that the sight of Bucky reading had brought on by then. 

Of course, after that Steve caught Bucky at it all the time. Maybe Steve was doing it unconsciously. Walking into rooms more quietly, changing his schedule or waking up spontaneously when he’d usually be dead to the world. It was completely possible that his brain would work against him like that. It had always been a little self-sabotaging. 

The sight of Bucky reading sent a frisson of want down Steve’s spine every time. The simple curve of Bucky’s body arched around a novel, the reading glasses sliding down his nose and his hair pushed carelessly behind his ears was enough to overheat every cell in Steve’s body. Somehow, he had managed not to alert Bucky he was watching. Eventually, Bucky would lick a finger and put it to corner of the page sending Steve bolting, silently, from the room. 

Eventually, out of sheer desperation, he went to Natasha. 

“You should ask him.” She said at first, predictably. 

“I should, but he won’t tell me.” 

“Then why should I?” 

“Please. It’s...weird. I don’t know if I should be worried.” Which was true. Partially. 

“Ask Pepper.” She bit out as if it pained her. 

“Thank you.” 

He caught up with Pepper in the lab, paperwork fanned around where she sat cross-legged on the floor and Bruce snoring quietly behind her on the couch. 

“Where’s Tony?” He asked because he’d never been here without Tony’s bombastic energy filling every corner. 

“Throwing up in the bathroom.” Pepper moved a sheet of paper from one stack to another. “He and Bruce shared a bottle of whiskey last night. No idea why. I’ll interrogate him once his head is out of the toilet.” 

“Shouldn’t you be making sure he’s ok?” Steve flicked a worried glance at the bathroom door. 

“He’s an expert.” She snorted. “I’ll yell at him in a few minutes to make sure he hasn’t passed out on the tile again. What’s up?” 

“Oh, I...” He laughed. “I don’t know. This sounds stupid, but do you know when Bucky started reading?” 

“Reading.” She repeated a little blankly then her face lit up with a bright smile. “Oh! I had him sign off on some papers for me, I noticed he was squinting a little. I was surprised because given his marksmanship, I thought he’d have perfect vision.” 

“He always said he could see for miles.” Bragged more like, but he’d hit anything he aimed at so at least it was a honest brag. 

“Well, he can. His distance vision is perfect. It’s his near vision that’s the issue. I dragged him to the eye doctor. It’s not that bad really. The glasses aren’t even prescription.” She went back to sorting papers. “Once he got them though, he said that he wasn’t getting headaches anymore.” 

“He got headaches?” As soon as he asked, Steve remembered again those long afternoons with his hand in Bucky’s hair. Steve reading and a comic limp in Bucky’s hand, only half-read and Bucky’s eyes screwed tight against the fading sunlight. Why hadn’t Steve noticed? Why hadn’t the Army caught it? 

“Apparently.” She shrugged. “He asked me what you liked to read after that, but I referred him to Sleeping Beastly over here.” 

“Hm, what?” Bruce mumbled when Pepper poked him with her pen. 

“Did you tell Bucky what I liked to read?” Steve asked him. 

“Was it a state secret?” Bruce opened one eye which was disturbingly bloodshot. “Oh God, I’m never ever letting him do this to me again.” 

“That’s what you said last time.” Pepper laughed. “And the time before that.” 

“I hate you, Tony!” Bruce shouted and a worryingly long moan from the bathroom came in return. 

“Bruce. The books?” Steve pushed. 

“Oh, yeah sure. Guess I gave him some things.” A yawn revealed that Bruce’s tongue was dyed a bright blue. Steve decided he didn’t want to know. “Probably the same reason he was bothering Clint about the origami.” 

“And why was that?” He’d thought it was just Bucky trying to make friends. 

“For you.” Bruce’s other eye opened. The look he gave Steve was kind, but exasperated. “With that kid, it’s always for you.” 

“I’ve gotta go.” Steve turned on his heels and bolted for the doors. He vaguely made out Pepper saying something about ‘twenty dollars’ and ‘sure thing’ as he ran for the elevator. 

He stabbed at the button for his floor, watching the numbers rise with increasing impatience. It spat him out by the kitchen and he took the marble stairs two at a time. The door to his room opened with a too loud bang. 

“Jesus fuck, Steve!” Bucky was on the bed _I, Robot_ held limply in one hand and a gun pointed at the door with the other. “Are you trying to get yourself shot?” 

In one swift step, Steve was across the room. His hand closed around the gun, setting it gently on the bedside table. He took the book and placed it reverently beside it. 

“Steve?” Bucky asked again, worry creasing his forehead. 

“Why did you think you had to hide this from me?” Steve kneeled next to Bucky on the bed. “Are we that....aren’t we still friends?” 

“Fuck, yes, of course. Steve, seriously?” Bucky sighed. “I just...” 

“Just what?” He asked impatiently. "I want to know. Because I don't get it. Did I do something wrong? Did you think I'd make fun of you? How could you even think-"

“I’ve always been too dumb for you.” The words visibly pained him to say. His face contorted like he was sucking on a lemon. “I mean that was ok when we were kids because I was the brawn or whatever. And then when we were in the army together, you needed me for moral support, but I can’t even do that anymore. I’m too fucked up and you’ve got like this entire family of people. So I thought maybe I could do this. I mean I knew I could and it was something I knew you’d like.” 

“Bucky,” it was like being punched low in the gut or knives scraped over raw nerves, “you’re always...you’re my best friend. How could you even think-” 

“I don’t think! I see!” Bucky tossed the glasses aside and rubbed at the bridge of his nose where they’d left a faint red impression on either side. “I’m this PTSD shaking mess of a burden on you. Reminding you of shit you lost instead of giving you whatever it is you need now.” 

“There’s only you.” Steve grabbed Bucky’s shoulders, shaking him slightly. “You idiot, there’s only ever been you. I don’t- I like the rest of them, they’ve been...infinitely good to me. But you’re you. You were there always. And maybe you’re not at your best and maybe you won’t be again, but you’re still my Bucky. My best friend. Ok? You don’t have to do anything-” 

“But what if I want to?” Bucky grabbed Steve at the wrist. “What if I want to be better for you? Where’s the crime in that?” 

“I don’t need you to be better.” 

“Maybe I need to be.” Bucky said so quietly that Steve had to lean closer to hear him. “I mean Natasha and I talk about it sometimes. She gives me stuff to read sometimes because I’m sorry, I’ve tried, but I hate this fantasy bullshit. The sci-fi is ok, but I live too much of it. She's got a serious hard-on for Margret Atwood and I'm coming around. But. We talk about stuff because she gets this. She gets trying to claw yourself back out this kind of dark hole and trying to be worthy of the light at the end. Maybe her light is Clint, I don’t know. I don’t ask. But you’re my light Steve. Don’t take that away from me.” 

There was nothing that could be said to that. Steve had no more words left. He closed the remaining space between them and kissed Bucky like they had been doing it their entire lives. Without missing a beat, Bucky traded his grip from Steve’s wrists to his waist and drew him closer. Messy, burning hot seconds later, Steve was straddling Bucky’s legs with one hand in his hair and the other on the back of his neck. 

“I’m sorry. I should have asked.” Steve backed away a careful inch, resting his forehead against Bucky’s. 

“I’ve been asking you forever, you just weren’t listening the right way.” Bucky half-laughed, half-sobbed. “Then there was the war and Peggy. And I’ve been such a goddamn mess.” 

“You’re not a mess. You’re rebuilding.” Steve kissed him again gently. “I’m sorry I’m an idiot. You know I’m always oblivious with this stuff.”

“No, don’t apologize. Just...don’t.” Bucky tumbled them over, so lay stretched out side by side on the bed. “Is this...is this going to be ok?” 

“Yeah,” Steve tangled their legs together, “yeah, we’ll take it slow and figure it out.” 

“How slow? Because I’m reasonably sure you’re still a virgin and as your best friend, I’m not sure how long I can let that stand.” The teasing edge in his voice unwound the last of Steve’s tension. 

“I’m not that kind of woman, soldier.” Steve grinned as Bucky spluttered. 

“Well fine then. We’ll go nice and slow, keep your virtue intact.” He said when he recovered. “So what do we do for now?”

“Read to me.” Steve demanded though the request surprised him as much as Bucky. 

“Uh, you sure?” 

“Yes.” Steve fumbled on the nightstand, pushing past the Asimov for the book he’d been reading the night before. He flipped a few pages back. “Here.” 

“Oh for the love...fine.” With ill-grace, Bucky accepted the book and fumbled in the blankets for his lost glasses. When he slide them on, Steve made a soft sound of approval. “You would find these attractive. You're secretly one kinky bastard, aren't you Rogers?” 

“Read, Barnes.” 

“Pushy, pushy.” Bucky sighed. “Ok....let's see....wait. Really? Didn’t Bruce give you this?” 

“In retrospect, he might have been trying to tell me something. In an unusually unsubtle manner.” 

“Man, you really are oblivious.” Bucky licked his lips. “I just...you sure you don’t want to kiss some more?”

“I’m not going to grade you. Just read it.” Careful not block Bucky’s view of the book, Steve lay his head on Bucky’s shoulder. With a sigh, Bucky began and soon he found his pace and the words spilled over both of them like a benediction, 

“‘It was true what Jim said, this wasn’t the end but the beginning. But the wars would end one day and Jim would come then, to the island they would share. One day surely the wars would end, and Jim would come home, if only to lie broken in MacMurrough’s arms, he would come to his island home. And MacMurrough would have it built for him, brick by brick, washed by the rain and the reckless sea. In the living stream they’d swim a season. For maybe it was true that no man is an island: but he believed that two very well might be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, my feelings about At Swim, Two Boys are in alignment with Bruce's, but I couldn't resist using that paragraph.


	7. Things We Learn About Each Other at Ikea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha and Clint in Ikea.

The real bitch of it was that normally Clint didn’t mind shopping. Oh, it wasn’t his favorite or anything, but he could go into an electronics store and compare prices or find a clothing store and try on for a few minutes. He had no inherent dislike of the process. 

But shopping with Natasha was a little like going to war without the soothing promise of being able to kill things. He had gone with her once to get new boots to prepare for a mission. With his limited experience of women and shopping, he had expected some dithering and maybe a few boring hours. It was like he had never even met the woman, sometimes. No, she had torn through the store, picking out four likely pairs and shoving her feet into them like they’d done something wrong. She resented the hell out of every minute extra she had to spend in the store and snapped orders at him like it was a mission. They had barely made it out without throwing down right in the camping aisle. 

With that experience firmly in mind, he looked her the eyes and said gently, 

“No.” 

“You said you would help me build new shelves in my rooms.” She reminded him mildly. 

“Yes.” He agreed, shifting his weight warily to his right foot. “And I will. I did not agree to get the materials with you. I definitely did not agree to go to Ikea.” 

“The boxes are an awkward shape. I can’t carry them by myself.” 

“Ok first off, that’s total bullshit.” He rolled his eyes. “Second, Steve or Bucky would be thrilled to get some hands on modern experience. Drag them into the forced march through blond woods and meatball smell.” 

“I wanted to go with you.” And there was nothing pleading or manipulative about it. Just the bald statement and the slight frown twitching at the corner of her lips. Goddamn it all. 

“Yeah, ok. Now?” 

“I have one of Tony’s vans.” She agreed. And bless her, there was no sign of triumph on her face. Natasha, underneath layers and layers of difficulty, was the most straightforward woman he knew. 

He reminded himself of how awesome she was as they drove recklessly down highways and pulled up in front of the huge blue and yellow monstrosity of a building. 

“Why Ikea anyway? I mean, we can afford nicer stuff these days.” He finally dared ask as they rode up the escalator. 

“I found this.” She slid a piece of paper into his hands and out of habit, he hunched over it as if someone might be watching. 

It was a print out from a website called Ikea Hackers. Some clever soul had bought bookshelves and reconfigured them into a wall mounted spiral of shelves. In red pen, she’d marked changes to the design and made a bulleted list next to it with various shelves and hardware marked. 

“So...we’re just looking for parts?” 

“Yes.” She looked serenely around the chaos of strollers and arguing couples on the showroom floor. “We could go directly to the warehouse floor, but you like seeing things in context.” 

She slid her hand into his, tentatively like she wasn’t sure of it’s welcome. He took it firmly, interlacing their fingers. They walked the entire maze of the showroom though Clint couldn’t have said later if he’d taken more than momentary notice of anything around them. It was just...normal. So weirdly normal to walk around a chain store, holding hands with his girl. Natasha wasn’t in a rush, wasn’t urging him on to the next task. She looked curiously around, picking up a knick-knack once in awhile or running her hand over the top of a chair. 

“Hey, look.” They were in the children’s area by then and even through his daze, lime green penetrated. He picked up the stuffed piece of broccoli with a laugh. “Remind you of anyone?” 

“Hm.” She took it from him, squeezing it slightly. “It does suit him.”   
Clint tucked it under his arm. “We’ll have to leave it somewhere secret. The other children will be jealous otherwise.” 

The broccoli would in the near future wind up under Bruce’s lab table. After some consideration, he would seat it on top of his printer. During some all nighter or another, Tony printed out a miniature Stark Industries security card to pin to his jaunty shirt that read ‘Dr. Brad Broccoli’. No one was quite sure who was responsible for the horn rimmed glasses, but it was universally agreed to be a nice touch. 

In the warehouse, some of Natasha’s usual shopping habits re-emerged. She found a flat bed and put the handles into Clint’s hand before stalking down each aisle like there might be someone to stab at the end of it. She had a series of coordinates, a map in her brain and Clint at her back. He was a little concerned that maybe she would stab someone just out of habit. 

Instead, she pulled heavy boxes off the shelves and piled them up onto the flatbed, shooting him sharp looks whenever the flatbed wasn’t exactly where she needed it to be at that moment. The lines at the registers snaked out forever, but he was grateful when she waved a hand at one of them to indicate her readiness. 

“How do you even have a wardrobe?” He asked, rubbing the heel of his hand over his forehead.

“What do you mean?” She asked, apparently content to be idle again as they waited. She perched on top of her pile of boxes, ignoring the appreciative looks of the men around her. 

“You shop like it’s an invasion.” 

“Oh.” She crossed her legs, looking him over as if evaluating how much information he could handle. “I don’t enjoy it. Stores bother me.” 

“Stores bother you.” He repeated, trying to work his way around that one. Than realized he could just ask. She was being remarkably patient with him today. “Why?” 

“Too much choice.” She shrugged, just one shoulder rising and falling. 

“Oh.” And...yeah. He could get that. She had spent her life doing exactly what she was told and the worth of all things, including her body, depended on usefulness. The last few years, she had reveled in making her own choices, but the freedom must be frightening too. They had talked around that idea a couple of times, he realized now. It hadn’t really sunk in for him. His life had been shitty, sure, but he’d almost always had a choice. “I can always go for you.” 

“You’re going to pick out clothing for me?” She raised an eyebrow upwards. 

“Sure. Why not?” He liked the idea of that, actually. He knew what she liked after all. Black, fitted and soft against surprisingly delicate skin. “You can always return it if you don’t like it. And JARVIS can give me more accurate measurements than I want to think too hard about.” 

“And what would you say if someone asked you why you were buying woman’s clothing?” There’s a tilt to her mouth, nearly to a smile. 

“I would say,” he leaned forward far enough that it feels a little intimate, his mouth inches from her shoulder and her eyes keen on his face, “that my girlfriend is way too awesome to waste her time doing something boring like shopping.” 

“Oh.” It was her turn to say, the smile breaking loose. Her smiles were a little terrifying, too much tooth and knowledge behind them. “Girlfriend? Isn’t that juvenile?” 

He plunked the stuffed broccoli into her lap and grinned. 

“Well. No one ever accused me of being a grown up.” 

She kissed him, too long, too messy and too deep for where they were. Somewhere to his right, a camera flashed, but Clint didn’t give a shit. They were going to go home and hang shelves in some crazy Natasha pattern. It would probably require far more knife work than any Ikea designer had ever intended and maybe they’d even bicker about it. It didn’t matter. Even if the shelves splintered and shattered, they were good at putting broken things back together.


	8. The Berne Facility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happened to the Berne Facility. 
> 
> I've wanted to write this one since I did Natasha's chunk of the main series.

The Berne Facility was two rooms, neither of which was a bathroom and a wood burning stove. In the room without the stove, she sat on a cot and stared at a wall. She could hear the buzz of voices, but none of them mattered. 

The cot was the only furniture in the room, serving as both resting space and a desk. A neat stack of folders sat inches from her hands. They contained dozens of photographs, reports and statements. There were two women in those folders. One was a ballerina. One was a killer. One had a father, who loved her and watched her grow up. One had grown up in a facility known as the Red Room with a dozen other capable girls. 

One sat on the bed. One existed only in carefully added memories. 

One would walk away and one would die here. 

“Ms. Romanov. May I come in?” 

The room had no door, but Agent Coulson always knocked at the frame and waited for her permission to enter. 

“Yes.” She had never refused. She did not think his courtesy would extend that far. 

“Thank you.” 

He carried a chair in and set it near her bed. He always sat very neatly and his hands open on his thighs. She didn’t doubt that he could grab for a weapon and shoot her dead if required, but he made an effort to keep things civil. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“You've been very quiet these last few days.” 

“I have a lot to think about.” She could see the manilla, bland and inoffensive, just out of the corner of her eye. 

“Yes, I imagine you do.” 

They sat in the quiet together. He did that a lot. She found it disconcertingly soothing. Silence was preferable to questions of course, but he managed not to make it feel like expectant quiet. 

“Lunch, boss.” Agent Barton walked in with a tray. She couldn’t see what was on it, but it smelled very good. 

“Agent or sir.” Coulson corrected him. 

“Ok, boss.” Barton winked at her. She didn’t react. He tried to engage her frequently, but his forced jocularity didn’t sit well. 

“Just set it down, agent.” Coulson’s exasperation was forced too. He seemed fond of Barton. She wondered how that worked. How did you invest in someone that you probably led into life or death situations? 

“Burgers and fries today. Fries are burnt.” Barton set the tray down, then sat down cross legged next to it. He handed Coulson a plate then took one for himself. When he handed Natasha one, she set it aside. They said nothing.

Coulson ate in small bites. 

Barton ate with one hand curved around the plate as if someone might steal it from him. When he finished his own food, he grabbed a few of her fries and ate them fast. When he reached out again, she slapped at his wrist. Not hard enough to make anyone nervous, but enough that her intent was clear. 

She ate the fries. Her stomach rewarded her by unclenching. Reluctantly, she picked up the burger. The edges were burnt and someone had smothered it in ketchup, but she took a bite anyway. Neither of the men watched as she ate, they talked to each other about sports. She followed it, in case it was code. 

“I just can’t believe it.” Coulson mourned. 

“What part of ‘cursed’ don’t you understand?” Barton clucked his tongue. “The Red Sox are never going to win a series. You gotta let it go.” 

“This coming from a Mets fan.” 

“Yeah, well. At least I don’t think they’re going to win. I’m a fan, not delusional.” 

“Why would you root for a team that will not win?” She asked, raking burnt meat off her teeth with her tongue. 

“Well, Coulson just lives in blind hope. Me? I just like having something to complain about.” 

“Sir?” A man in a slick suit appeared in the doorway holding an AK-47 as if it were a loaf of bread. She could disarm him before he knew what happened. Shoot all three of them and run. They had driven into the wilderness, but she was used to living rough. She could do what was required. 

“What is it?” Coulson was on his feet, plate forgotten on the floor next to Barton’s boots. 

“It’s the Director on the line for you.” 

“Right.” Coulson shot Barton a look, then went out the door into the other room. The one with the stove she could always smell. The smoke sometimes billowed into this room, a sign of damp wood. 

“Hey.” Barton moved to sit in Coulson’s chair. He sat with his legs far apart, confident and his hands were occupied. He’d drawn a small piece of paper from a pocket. 

She said nothing. He folded the paper. 

“I wish we could give you more time.” He said and the paper bloomed into a rose under his fingertips. “I wish we could give you a third option.” 

“What would that option be?” She asked, suddenly very tired. It wasn’t poison. She had gone so long without eating that her full stomach made her drowsy. 

“Witness protection or something. Give you a new name and settle you somewhere. Canada or something.” He shrugged. “You could be who you wanted.” 

She touched the folders with just the very tip of her fingers. 

“I am always myself.” She said. 

“Really? Must be nice.” Barton shrugged with one shoulder. “I still have no idea who I am.” 

“You seem to be an agent of SHIELD with a soft spot for doe eyes.” She watched his fingers, twitch and fold. 

“Wasn’t the eyes.” He corrected absently. “I don’t think you can really read people from their eyes. I mean maybe enough to clean them out in the poker, but not to take stupid risks on.” 

“Then why did you?” The question has gnawed at her. Why the tranquilizer and this vacation in the middle of nowhere instead of the bullet through the soft points of her skull?

He kept working, turning the paper into something that looked a little like a bird. When he finally looked up at her, his expression was regulation blank and his eyes gave nothing away. 

“Someone gave me the benefit of the doubt once and it saved my life. Guess you could say I was paying it forward.” He made a last easy crease and set a crane next to her half-eaten burger. She wasn’t surprised when he got up and left after that. 

She lay back on the bed and gazed at exposed wooden beams. The folder lay next to her, a corpse still cooling. It wasn’t the first time she had slept next to a dead body, but it was the first time she felt sad about it. With the paper crane looking on, she held a funeral for girl in the folder. The one who danced. 

“I’ve prepared a list of names.” She said blankly when Agent Coulson next knocked. “Everyone related to the Red Room, split into active and inactive. There’s a second list with locations of every known facility related to their projects.” 

“I see.” He took the crinkled piece of paper from her hand. It was covered in her precise handwriting. That at least had always been hers. 

“I know I’m in no place to make a request.” She looked at her hands. They were good hands, the skin smooth and the nails pink ovals. They could be any woman’s hands if it weren’t for the traces of an old burn scar along the left palm. “But there was woman. Yasmin. If you find where they disposed of the failures, I would like her to have a proper burial.” 

“I’ll see what I can do.” Coulson made no move to touch her, but he sounded kind anyway.

Natasha kept her eyes on the scar on her palm. She could hear Yasmin’s whispers paperthin and promising. The memory wasn’t as pleasant as the one of her father singing to her, but it had all the benefit of being real. Yasmin had existed, had taken the time to read to a small frightened girl. She deserved to be remembered. 

“Thank you.” The words choked in her throat. Coulson left, to make his report no doubt. She counted his footsteps in the hall and when she was sure he was out of range, she brought her knees up to her chest and set her chin on top of them. Everything was too raw, too exposed and she wanted to crawl inside herself away from the weak sunlight. 

“Hey.” Barton said from the doorway. “You know how to play gin rummy?” 

“No.” She unfolded immediately, on guard and furious at intrusion on her grief. 

“Let me teach you.” The deck of cards appeared between his fingers as if conjured. “Fucking boring here, you know?” 

They wound up on the floor, the cards between them and in their hands. Barton had an easy way of explaining things and a casual attitude about losing consistently once she had a handle on the rules. 

He didn’t seem to want anything from her except companionship. It was refreshing if a little bewildering. The wind whistled through the rafters, a chill creeping in. 

“I hate this place.” She confided when they were both too tired to keep up the pretense of playing. 

“Yeah, me too.” He smiled, the first one she’d seen on anyone’s face since she came here. It was genuine and a little crooked. “When we leave, we should burn this fucker to the ground.” 

She assumed that he had been joking. He would mention it every so often in the ensuing days as she taught him Durak, he folded her a dozen more cranes and Coulson spent more and more of his day on the phone. 

“Agent Romanov.” Coulson called her from down the hall, long after days had slurred into weeks. “Get your things together.” 

“Without my matched luggage?” She muttered, surprised when Barton snorted from the doorway. 

“I’ve got a spare duffel for you.” He tossed it at her and she grabbed it easily, folding in the only two outfits she had. Everything else she owned was probably a lost cause. “They packed up your apartment in Milan and shipped most of it to SHIELD HQ. You’ll have to live on site for however long they decide you’re on probation, so it’ll be there. And hey, I’ll have someone to play cards with.” 

“You live on base?” She left the manila folder on the bed. Let it gather dust until the next time someone needed this godforsaken hut. 

“Sure. I’m away too much to maintain an apartment.” He grinned. “Ready to blow this joint?” 

“Yes.” She brushed by him and into the main room. Coulson was waiting, his own regulation bag over one shoulder and his phone pressed to his ear. He kept making soothing noises into it and the voice on the other end only got louder and louder. 

“Car is locked and loaded, sir.” Barton said quietly. 

“Good. We have debriefing as soon as we touch down.” 

Natasha crossed the threshold with a grateful intake of fresh air. The forest was dense and dark, the road little more than a dirt path, but it was a way out and she was happy to see it. The car was an armored vehicle with a generous backseat. Coulson slid into the driver’s seat, but Barton go into the back with her. 

“Wanna do the honors?” He whispered. 

“What honors?” 

He pressed a small plastic device into her head. It was topped off with a big red button. She stared at it then up at him. Coulson was still talking on the phone, his soothing noises having graduated into smooth assurances. He turned the ignition and hit the gas, pulling them out of any potential blast radius. 

“You went through all the trouble.” Natasha favored Barton with the ghost of a smile. “Together, perhaps?” 

He put his thumb over hers and on a silent three count, they pressed down. 

The cabin didn’t actually explode, but carefully imploded, folding inward like a house of cards collapsing. It was graceful and almost peaceful. 

“BARTON!” Coulson slammed on the brakes. 

Barton had a good laugh. It started somewhere deep in his stomach and came out in wheezing hard shakes of his shoulders. A high trill of answering laughter rose in her throat and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep it from escaping. When she could school expression to stillness, she raised her eyes to meet Coulson’s in the rearview mirror. He looked at them sternly, but she could see the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. 

“You two will be the death of me.” He announced. Then stepped back on the gas and they were flying away from the rubble, hurtling towards the future.


	9. Chapter 9

After the first time, Natasha had assumed that Clint would never again make the mistake of relying on her as a caretaker when he was ill. To be fair, the first time around it wasn’t as if he’d had a lot of choice. They’d been lying very very low after their cover had been blown in the French embassy in Sweden by an incompetent new handler. Said handler had been shipped out to a frigid corner of Alaska after the paperwork had been signed. 

That slight vengeance hadn’t helped when they were hunkered down in a shitty hotel room, Clint slowly succumbing to an ugly bout of the flu. At first Natasha hadn’t even noticed anything was wrong. They were sleeping in shifts and when they were awake together it was in surveillance mode. Good at being quiet with each other was one of the things that made them excellent partners. 

It wasn’t until Clint fell asleep, his bow sagging from his lap to aim useless at the floor that she realized something might be off. She crossed the mildewed carpet quickly, shaking him up. 

“What?” He blinked at her, eyes glassy and a faint sheen of sweat over his skin. 

“You’re sick.” She bit out and instinctively stepped back. 

“Shit.” He rubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes. 

“Yes.” She watched him warily. 

“I’m going to throw up.” He stumbled towards the bathroom, closing the door behind him. 

She took up his position at the window, cradling her gun carefully as she listened to him wretch miserably. There was no room for illness in the way she had been brought up. If you got sick then the experiment had failed and you disappeared. If you were injured, you were dispensed the correct medication or splint and watched through a microscope until it healed, too fast to be normal. 

“I think I’m empty.” He informed her hours later, then collapsed face first onto his bed. The blankets were too thin and he shivered under them. She watched the strong line of his shoulders shake. 

There was a bitterness at the back of her throat. Fear. 

“Barton?” She asked quietly, but there was no reply. 

The blanket on her bed was equally pathetic, but she added it over him anyway, careful not to touch his sweaty skin. 

“Gonna be fine.” He mumbled as she backed away again. “Don’t worry.” 

“I’m not worried.” She snapped and took up guard again, watching the street through the slit in dirty curtains. 

He slept a lot over the next three days. She left glasses of water on his end table. There were crackers in the meager supply of food they’d stashed away and he nibbled at them, stomach accepting them uneasily by the second day. 

Her cell rang deep into the third day. Clint was watching some kind of German drama, but she couldn’t focus on it long enough to untangle the plot. He still looked bad, dark circles under his eyes and a listlessness where she expected fierce attention. 

“Agent.” Coulson’s voice was like the answer to a prayer over the cheap plastic phone. 

“Sir.” She pressed the speaker closer to her ear. 

“We’re coming to extract you in the next hour. Any complications?” 

She glanced over at Clint who eyed her warily. 

“No, sir. We’ll be ready.” She hung up, punching the button too hard. “We’ve got an hour.” 

“Thank fuck.” He stumbled up and out of bed. 

When they were finally in the back of the truck, leaving behind the hotel, the highway and the whole rotten country, he fell asleep again and his head lolled onto her shoulder. She was careful not move the entire three hour drive to the next pick up point. 

So all things considered she had been the worst nursemaid one could imagine. She didn’t like admitting failure, but it was important to know one’s weaknesses. From that point on if Clint was sick, he had the courtesy not to do so in her vicinity. 

Then they became lovers and in the middle of that first freezing February in their shared bed, Clint started to sniffle. It was nothing at first. Just a little phlegm. Then he started sneezing and coughing. Bruce finally ordered him to bed with a heady dose of Nyquil and strict instructions to stay put. 

“Yes, sir.” Clint gave a sloppy salute, then dropped his hand to Natasha’s. “Come watch bad tv with me.” 

Flustered, she followed along in silence. She froze in the doorway to his rooms when he started to cough again, the straight lines of his back distorted by the force of it. He shed his clothes, shimmied under the comforter then looked at her expectantly. 

“This isn’t my area.” She admitted, one hand still on the doorknob. 

“You don’t need to coo over me or anything.” He reached for a tissue and blew his nose until it disintegrated in his hands. “I get if I’m too gross to stay in bed with though.” 

“I don’t like it when you get sick.” She winced at how it sounded, but she was learning to talk about these things. She had too many secrets as it was. 

“Yeah, I’m not a fan either.” With a sigh, he lifted the blanket up. “Just get over here.” 

She didn’t strip to her skin, already too exposed, but she did get underneath the blanket. After some shifting, they ended up with her propped against the headboard and his head in her lap. 

“It’s a bad idea to be weak in front of me.” She warned. 

“Why?” He took her hand and placed it in his hair. It was a little sweaty under her hand. She scratched gently at his scalp. 

Because I could shatter you, she thought, break you when I see where your defenses are thin. 

But that wasn’t true anymore or at least, it wasn’t true that she would make use of the knowledge. 

“That feels nice.” He said when she didn’t reply. So she kept up the light message, running her nails through his hair until the rhythm had half-hypnotized her and his wheezing breath had begun to ease towards dozing. 

“You can’t die.” She whispered, unsure if she even wanted him to hear it. 

“Ok.” He kissed her thigh through the thin fabric of her pants. “I won’t.” 

It was a meaningless, stupid thing to promise. She dropped her hand to the back of his neck, rubbing at the tense muscles there. He moaned softly and warmth expanded outward through her chest. It was a stupid promise, but it meant everything anyway.


End file.
